One of the most emblematic venues in Mexico City is the Esperanza Iris City Theater, which in 1987 was declared a World Cultural Heritage Site by UNESCO.
But the red seats and elegant boxes of this venue have not only witnessed the talent of artists such as Enrico Caruso, Ana Pavlova and Plácido Domingo, but have also been resilient to the passage of time and historical changes, including a fire.
It happened 40 years ago, on March 3, 1984, when the fire left serious damage to the second and third floors; It consumed tapestries, seats, curtains and part of the carpeting, leaving the theater unavailable for two years.
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The theater, which had been built in 1918 by the famous Mexican actress and singer known as the “Queen of the Operetta”, Esperanza Iris had already gone through a crisis after the singer’s death in 1962. At that time her husband was in prison and his four children had died, so there was no one to inherit the compound; It was divided among his nephews to finally be sold, in 1976, to the Department of the Federal District, when it received the name of the City Theater and its first remodeling, preserving some of its original parts, which seek to assimilate the Scala of Milan, Italy .
When the fire happened, it had already been recovered and converted into one of the most important in the country, so the government did not want to lose an emblematic space like this. Investment was made in the recovery and a second remodeling, leading to the reopening on November 20, 1986 with a tribute to the Guanajuato tenor Pedro Vargas.
However, 10 years later it had to close its doors again and undergo a third remodeling because several parts of the façade began to fall off. He returned again on April 9, 2002 with the show Viva La Zarzuela, under the direction of Placido Domingo.
And it did not receive its current name, in honor of its creator, until 2008, when it officially became the “City Theater, Esperanza Iris.”
In 2013, the coordinator of the Mexico City Theater System, Ángel Ancona, explained to EL UNIVERSAL that they planned to modify some aspects for the theater’s centenary, in 2018: “The ideal in planning for the 100 years of the theater would be a change of team and grow the forum.”
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2024-03-04 04:32:59
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